


if i land will i stumble

by alatarmaia4



Series: star wars crossover [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, as usual gabriel has to work through some shit, but this time i pay attention to bail too i promise, think this pairing is a new one for the tag wranglers folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 07:33:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28467603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alatarmaia4/pseuds/alatarmaia4
Summary: An AU divergence from the main story in this series, starting a) from a specific moment and b) with more thought put into characters who aren't Gabriellisten it's what it says on the tin. Posted on 12/31/2020 - fuck you, this past year, I'm still going.
Relationships: Bail Organa/Gabriel (Supernatural)
Series: star wars crossover [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085189
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> is this an update on my newest gabriel au fic? no. is it the next chapter in the actual main story of this series? also no. i promise i'm working on that but no, absolutely not, i probably won't get to that for a while because college and i graduate in may hopefully and _(looks too far into my personal future and starts laughcrying)_
> 
> am i finally scratching an itch that occurred to me one day, years ago, but never in the whole time that I was actually writing the Original Trilogy portion of doesn't matter (etc)? am i realizing that i did not do bail justice and as soon as i thought about his character for more than two seconds i realized he probably really, really liked gabriel? like _liked_ liked?
> 
> if you compare with the main story you can actually find the exact scene I riff off of to begin this little divergent narrative. god using the word divergent still reminds me of that ripoff YA series by veronica roth. what a parody of the genre. anyway happy new years' it's only 8pm here.

Aldera is laid out on the valley below. The capital city is built on the sloping side of a mountain, with the palace nestled nearly halfway up one of them, at an angle that would have been precarious for any architect hailing from Earth. From here, it looks like a bunch of glitter scattered on the ground, light shining out from various windows and streetlamps. A universe in miniature, and a view of it all from on high.

“You’re being rather unsociable, compared to a moment ago,” Bail says from behind him. Gabriel’s hands tighten momentarily on the railing.

“Just thinking,” he says, without looking away from the sprawl of space-age metropolis. Bail joins him at the railing, nursing a small cup of what looks like the mint tea from earlier. A stiff breeze blows past, but it’s not very cold. Something in Gabriel feels like shivering anyway.

He’s running so wholeheartedly on instinct it’s a little more difficult to ignore the more human ones. Gabriel makes an effort to straighten himself out a little, crowd those bits back into the corner of his mind.

“About what?”

“Stuff. This-” Gabriel gestured vaguely. “Stuff.”

“The dinner?” Bail sounds confused, but it’s edged with something else now, warier. Gabriel mentally backtracks.

“There was not a good way to make that come out,” he says, snorting a little at his own misstep. Think before you fucking speak, self. “I didn’t - _haven’t_ done anything like this in...a long time. I wasn’t expecting it. That’s all.”

“But you used to?” Bail sounds surprised.

“It’s...complicated.”

“You said you weren’t from Alderaan?” Bail questions, an edge of curiosity in his voice. “I wouldn’t have thought your family had that kind of ancestry.” Gabriel barks out a laugh.

“That’s - you could say that’s complicated, too.”

“So your family wasn’t practicing?”

“God, questions about  _ them  _ are the last thing I need right now,” Gabriel says, surprising even himself with the amount of venom in it. He spies a mostly ornamental looking chair and collapses into it, rubbing a hand over his face so he doesn’t have to look at Bail.

“Are you drunk?” Bail asks.

“No.” Gabriel considers that, and revises it to “I doubt it.” He’s drunk a lot tonight, maybe, but he hasn’t been trying to get drunk, which is the usual requirement of being able to, for him.

“Not an answer that necessarily inspires confidence.” Bail sits down next to him. The chair is uncomfortable and cold, and Bail’s probably is too - Gabriel wonders why he doesn’t just go back inside.

“I inspire lots of things,” Gabriel says, instead of voicing his thoughts. Paintings. Religions. Fear. Most of the inspiration was done without his actually doing anything, though. Except the religions. There was a lot of the paintings and fear, and only three religions. He’s pretty sure he owns a couple of the paintings.

“At the moment, you’re inspiring me to try and take you back inside. It’s far too chilly out to have a conversation outside.”

“I’m a grown-ass man,” Gabriel says, which is a statement that is debatable in multiple ways.

“Then will you make the adult decision to come inside?”

Gabriel smiles a little to himself. “You don’t have to worry about me,” he says. 

“I hope you don’t mind if I do anyway. It’s only right, as a friend, to keep you from doing anything foolish out of a lack of moderation.”

Gabriel threads his fingers together. He looks down at his hands. “Friends, huh,” he says. “Funny how that sneaks up on you.” What did Bail get out of it? Gabriel’s already in the Rebellion with him. 

Bail is quiet for a moment, and then remarks, “I’ve met many people, and had drinks with all sorts, but I believe you’re the first I’ve encountered whose first resort, upon drinking a little more wine than wise, is to get philosophical.”

“Really?”

“Generally it takes a few more drinks and some tipsiness, and by that point anyone trying to be philosophical is less than fully coherent.”

“Well,” Gabriel says, packing up his issues as thoroughly as he always does, “let’s go back inside and stop worrying about it, then.”

* * *

Bail makes a point, after that, of continuing to invite him over for Shabbat dinners. Gabriel, never certain what he means by it, makes a point of randomly refusing. Emi never minds, though she’s clearly confused what Gabriel thinks he’s doing with all of it. 

Gabriel doesn’t think  _ he’s  _ doing anything. Bail, though, seems more purposeful.

Bail doesn’t ask about his family again. Whatever else happened, he’s insightful enough to know that he had crossed some invisible line - one of many, Gabriel thinks wryly, that lie around Gabriel’s past like tripwires.

* * *

The thing is. It’s Gabriel’s past, but it’s also Bail’s religion.

Gabriel is allowing himself to be known as Gabriel for the first time in almost a thousand years. It feels like uncertain territory, awkward and new. And what he could reveal about himself, if he chose to tell the truth-

He doesn’t want to be responsible for driving Bail away from something that is so close to his heart, to his family’s daily life.

So he says nothing, and he drinks from the Kiddush cup when it’s passed to him, and he wonders what it means that in this different world with different history it’s still so much the same.

* * *

After he keeps Chava company, when the Imperials come, something changes. Gabriel’s not quite sure what. Something in the tone of his exchanges with Bail and Breha are different. Gabriel doesn’t see why; he’s done favors for their family before. He might lay the blame on his shapeshifting ability, but they’re hardly going to think worse of him just because he’s not human. 

That train of thought doesn’t help him figure anything out, but it does mean that he’s not in the least surprised when, one evening, months later, Bail asks him why he looks human.

For some reason, Gabriel’s reflexive, irreverent answer stops on the tip of his tongue. He swallows it back down and swirls the mint tea around in his cup, wondering what else there is to say. It’s only him and Bail and Breha in the room, the kids run off elsewhere to play some game Leia discovered that needs at least two players to work. 

“Why not?” Gabriel says, before too much time passes between question and answer. “Always liked humans, personally.” He can give Bail that much of the truth.

“May I ask what for?” Breha questions. Gabriel knows he can tell her no and she’ll change the topic so easily Bail, practiced politician as he is, will hardly notice. 

Maybe that’s why he answers.

“Oh, nothing in particular,” he says, “not physically, anyway. It’s a shame humans don’t have tails though.”

“Are tails the lure of shapeshifting, then?”

Gabriel thinks about it. “No,” he says. “Feathers are.”

“Feathers,” Bail comments, “not flying?”

Gabriel can fly anytime he likes. Physical wings are a luxury. “I like how they feel,” Gabriel says, shrugging. “I know better than to try and describe it, because I only understand it through a bird’s senses, but trust me, it’s pretty good.”

_ “Do  _ your senses change? I wondered,” says Breha. “It’s curious how, if so much changes, a person might still retain a certain level of intelligence.”

“Birds are pretty smart,” Gabriel muses. “Just...slightly to the left and down of how humans comprehend intelligence.”

“I did see a scholarly piece like that once, discussing the root system of prairie grass from a planet just outside the Core,” says Bail, and the conversation goes off on a different track from there. But it’s interrupted by the arrival of snacks, and then Bail says, as Gabriel jumps on the tray,

“If you changed form, would you have to obey the...the rules, for lack of a better word? Dogs can’t eat chocolate.”

“This is caramel,” Gabriel says thickly around the treat, and swallows, and grins at Bail’s fond exasperation. “I dunno, I’ve never tried. I’d probably be okay.”

“Probably?” Bail raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m always okay,” Gabriel refutes cheerfully. 

“I think even a lucky man falls prey to his own nature,” Breha observes. Gabriel’s hand pauses over the snacks. Breha says things sometimes like she’s not aware of her own skill at insight - or maybe because she is.

Why does he have to keep second-guessing himself around these two? Well, Gabriel knows the answer, really, and like most times, it’s his own fault for doing what he’s done.

“I didn’t mean to stop you,” Breha teases lightly, and Gabriel realizes he’s still paused. He smiles, forces himself to relax, takes a chocolate.

“You couldn’t,” he jokes back.

* * *

Gabriel wonders sometimes what it looks like to an outside perspective, that Bail and Breha spend so much time on him - a relative nobody. His visits to the palace are subtle, always conducted with the family alone, outside the eye of Breha’s court and with the same limited circle of servants. Probably well-vetted ones. And, well, he’s encouraged people not to take much notice of him, but if he  _ doesn’t,  _ what kind of public eye might he have ended up in?

Better for Emi that he does, probably.

* * *

For an unreasonably long time he doesn’t consider the effort that goes into such a production. It’s easier to assume that his own powers are streamlining things. That’s what he’s been trying to do with them, and he always gets to do what he wants, so why would he question it? And thus the very purposeful organization of Bail and Breha’s time goes without attention. 

So when he gets an invitation as usual, on an end-of-the-week day that he’s sure he mentioned Emi wouldn’t be able to make it for, he chalks it up to forgetfulness on Bail’s end. The man’s a king - well, king-consort, whatever the intricacies of that are - and probably has a lot on his mind.

But Gabriel’s been making excuses for weeks. It just happens to be that the Emi one is legitimate. So he goes, sans Emi, which she doesn’t mind, because her own adventure involves going out to the movies with some school friends, and she’s genuinely excited at the prospect of having non-royal playmates. 

As it happens, Emi’s not the only one who can’t make it. Bail pleads his patience, when Gabriel arrives, for Breha’s absence. It’s not Shabbat, so it makes sense to Gabriel that Breha would be less likely to feel bound to a social appointment. And as a matter of fact, the princesses are missing too, so it’s just Gabriel and Bail.

“I’m sure we’ll find something to talk about,” Bail says, pouring out two cups of something to drink with extreme care. 

“Boys’ night,” Gabriel quips, even though he’s only a man out of convenience. He does enjoy it, so maybe that counts for something. Bail laughs brightly.

“I do appreciate you coming tonight,” Bail says. “It’s occurred to me how strange this all is - that none of it might have happened, had we lived in ordinary days. It would feel very odd to go to such quiet lengths just to make time for a friend.”

“Meaning, without the war someone would have tried harder to investigate who the fuck I am by now?” Gabriel grins. “I wouldn’t worry. I have my own ways of being subtle.”

“Maybe someday we won’t need anything subtle.” Bail glances at him. 

“After the war?” Gabriel finishes for him.

“I, at least, would feel a little more comfortable having friends outside the shadows. But I know your own opinion may be very different.”

“Human royalty would be a new one for me,” Gabriel agrees. Most of his friends were nonhuman, regardless of whether they were royalty or not. 

“Specifically human?” The question is a leading one. Gabriel looks away.

“It’s a long story.”

Bail turns, facing Gabriel even though Gabriel is leaning against the cushions of the low sofa, looking out through the tall, stately windows. One of them has been left open, sending a soft, warm breeze through the room, making the sheer curtains drift. “We have time to talk. Unless it’s too...identifiable.” The whole reason Gabriel’s connection to the royal family is secret is to keep Gabriel himself secret, after all.

Gabriel could say any number of clever, misleading things. When he glances back at Bail, his gaze flickers up and down the king. “You don’t have to get all  _ nervous  _ about it,” he says, grinning at Bail easily. Bail straightens with a jerk, as if Gabriel had elbowed him.

“It’s different, not having so much company,” he says, gesturing unhelpfully. When he puts his hand down, he puts it on top of Gabriel’s. 

This is new.

_ Breha couldn’t make it, my ass,  _ is the first thing Gabriel thinks. He lifts his eyes back to Bail’s face, meaning to say it, to lighten the mood, do  _ something.  _ His own preternatural insight strikes him into silence for a moment.

“Oh,” he says, “you’re...serious.” Bail  _ means  _ this. He’s genuinely flirting, and with a purpose.

Bail flushes, just a little. He straightens again, as if preparing himself for something, but then slumps into a more genuine posture, though hardly a relaxed one. “Breha said I’d left it long enough,” he said.

There is some wire crossed in one of their minds, and Gabriel doesn’t think it’s his.  _ “Me?”  _ He manages. “When you’re married to _ Breha?” _

Bail laughs, a little. “She was, um, surprised too. I think I was as well. Maybe that’s why this took so long.” His fingers around Gabriel’s tighten, briefly. His hand is warm. 

Gabriel jerks his hand away. He can’t explain the panicked response, so instead he presses Bail’s hand back down, folding his own on top like a handshake of offered condolences. “Bail,” he says, “you don’t even know anything about me,” because that’s true, isn’t it? What does Bail know to fall in love with?

“I think I know the important things,” says Bail. 

“You don’t even know what  _ species  _ I am.” Don’t know what you’re asking for, is what Gabriel means. Don’t know what a precarious thing this is,  _ Gabriel  _ is. He almost laughs. This is so stupid, how is it even happening to him? 

“You could always tell me,” Bail suggests. His fond exasperation is tempered by the descent of his mood, the way the whole tone of the conversation has changed. Bail  _ didn’t know,  _ he probably expected the conversation to go well, Gabriel to be flattered, maybe, but what was Gabriel really supposed to do with this? Any of it? 

“It’s not that simple,” Gabriel says. The breeze coming in through the window is cold. He can see every chance at future friendship with Bail crumbling. This is exactly what he’s been trying to avoid, trying to keep things simple and shallow because reveal just a little bit too much and it all comes crumbling down, but what are his choices now? Say nothing and be an asshole, or say something and ruin it further?

“I don’t understand why not.” Bail reaches for his hand again.

_ “Bail,”  _ Gabriel pleads, jerking back and up to his feet, and the lights flicker and his shadow sputters and starts to spread across the wall behind him, because what is there left to ruin with the revelation? Gabriel can go somewhere else, probably, and they’ll never have to have a conversation after this, never have to address what Gabriel being here  _ and  _ being an angel means.

Some of the lights don’t flicker back on. Bail stands cautiously, his shadow stretching out long and black towards the windows.

“There’s nothing I can tell you that won’t make things worse,” says Gabriel, and he means it.

“I don’t understand,” Bail says, and he sounds hurt. “What about you could be so bad?” 

Maybe Gabriel could have stopped before it all spiraled out of control. Maybe he could have played at what Bail wanted just the same as he’d played at friendship. But somewhere along the way he’s started valuing Bail enough to know, in his heart, that he can’t get closer without telling the truth. And he  _ had  _ been staying a careful distance away - but he hadn’t noticed Bail coming closer.

And if Bail is already there, Gabriel can either avoid him forever to make himself feel better, or he can tell him and let Bail move away again.

He still doesn’t want to.

“This wouldn’t be happening if I’d been honest from the start,” he says bitterly. Bail’s arm twitches like he wants to reach for Gabriel again, but thinks better of it. “I’m - I’m sorry.”

“I don’t understand-”

“Bail,  _ look at me.”  _ Gabriel is the Messenger. He can make himself understood. The lights spark and sputter and his shadow spreads out behind him, black and winged. 

Maybe he can’t bear to say it out loud, but he can make sure Bail understands what he means. What he is.

Bail half collapses back into his seat, one knee underneath him and one foot still on the floor, a hand on the back of the sofa to steady him. His gaze locked on Gabriel. 

The phrase  _ Be not afraid  _ rises to Gabriel’s lips and he can’t bring himself to say it. 

“Oh,” Bail breathes. Gabriel doesn’t breathe. 

Bail rises, slowly; he comes close enough to touch Gabriel’s shoulder, like he thinks Gabriel will bolt, or his hand will pass straight through him. He holds tight when he finds Gabriel solid enough to grip. 

“The whole time,” Bail says. It’s not quite a question.

“Can’t turn it on and off,” Gabriel says tightly. Bail just looks at him with - with wonder, not betrayal. 

Gabriel reaches up and takes Bail’s hand off his shoulder. He presses it briefly between his own hands, like a gesture of condolence. He looks down at their hands instead of at Bail. “It’s okay,” he says. “I understand.”

Between one breath and the next, he’s gone.

* * *

Gabriel is beginning to think he doesn’t understand.

The silence, he expects. He and Bail didn’t regularly talk that often anyway. It’s easy to pretend that everything was normal. But then Bail sends him an invitation to the end-of-the-week Shabbat dinner - like normal.

Except things  _ aren’t  _ normal. 

“Are we going?” Asks Emi, who handed him the usual invitation. 

“No.” Bail doesn't know what he's asking for.

* * *

Through the evening a vague longing tugs at him like a prayer, and Gabriel doesn’t have to think about it too hard to know who it’s coming from. It isn’t the first time he’s noted it, among the various prayers he hears like a whisper through a wall, a hushed conversation in the next room not meant for him. Alderaan, or whatever other planets out there might have heard of things like him, doesn’t seem to have much particular use for the archangel Gabriel. Bail has always been notable. 

Breha, less so.

Gabriel doesn’t recognize her voice at first, not enough to pick it out from among the many, but the longer he listens the clearer it becomes. She’s not praying to him; she’s asking God, like everyone else. But the intent alone, the desire for him to be involved, is enough for him to pick it up a little more readily. 

He tries to ignore it. He’s in the middle of washing the dishes. Breha sounds only half serious, more like she’s joking than addressing a serious prayer. But he’s still hearing them. Even the most idle request can get picked up, if someone’s listening, and Breha keeps making them.

_ May HaShem bless Gabriel with our presence- _

“-and we’ll figure this all...out.” Breha falters when the lights start flickering. 

“I heard you the first time.”

They both spin around - Bail and Breha, alone in their sitting room. Gabriel looks down and wipes the soap off his hands. The lights stabilize. Bail shoots to his feet, belated surprise jolting him upright. The breeze creeps in behind Gabriel, tugging at the edges of the curtains like a curious cat. They left the balcony doors open; it’s still seasonally warm out most nights. 

“Heard me?” Breha says, as if she doesn’t understand. The reality of Gabriel appearing out of nowhere is probably harder to swallow than whatever her husband’s told her. But she falters for only a second before adding, “Those words weren’t directed at you.”

“I’m close enough to catch them.”

Breha glances at Bail. She still looks uncertain. Gabriel is purposefully not acknowledging whatever expression is on Bail’s face. When his wife looks back at Gabriel, she looks like Bail did the night before.

“Did He send you?”

This is everything Gabriel had been trying to avoid. “I’m not here on a mission from God, Breha,” he says quietly. It may be the first time he’s called her by her name, to her face. 

“Then why?”

“Why what? Why am I here? What is ‘here’ - Alderaan? This city? This room?” Gabriel sticks his hands in his pockets and shrugs, exaggeratedly. “I’unno.”

“You can’t blame us for being confused.” Gabriel makes the mistake of looking at Bail when he speaks and sees a flicker of a smile pass across his face, like he’s trying hard to be good-humored. He is painfully earnest. “This is...”

Bail doesn’t manage to find the words, so Breha stands too, speaking instead. “You must be here for some reason.”

“Must I,” Gabriel says, quiet again. 

“It seems hard to believe that an angel would show up just to be friends,” says Bail. “What you’ve done for us-”

“I am your friend,” Gabriel says, a little hurt by the disbelief in Bail’s voice. “I thought I was, anyway.”

Bail’s gaze is searching. “You left so suddenly,” he says. “I thought something might have changed.”

“...It has changed.” Gabriel looks away, and speaks more briskly to cover the simmering unsaid things in the room. He’s up to his ankles in it. “Probably hard to know what you know now and have things stay the same as they were.”

Bail takes a step forward. “Why keep it a secret at all?” He asks. “If there’s no errand you’ve been sent on, unless you were asked to hide it, why? We would hardly have refused you.”

“Would we have ended up here?” Gabriel retorts, and Bail doesn’t have a ready answer.

“Gabriel,” Breha says tentatively, like she’s testing the name on her tongue, and Gabriel obliges and settles his attention on her. “It’s...you come with a heavy reputation. We don’t ask these questions just for ourselves. There are - someone like you being  _ here,  _ is completely unprecedented.”

He can’t even begrudge her that, really. Gabriel drags a hand over his face. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. He wants things to be simple. He wants Bail and Breha not to have so many assumptions to bring to the table. “This isn’t a holy mission,” he says, and he knows he sounds tired. “I’m not here for a reason. I’m not here with purpose. God didn’t send me. Hell, maybe I’d go so far as to say He doesn’t know I’m here. Who knows what He’s paying attention to.” He clamps the lid down on that bitterness before any more of it can spill out. Breha doesn’t deserve that.

Bail and Breha exchange a look. “He?” Breha asks, confused.

“Whatever you want to refer to God as.” Is it She, here on Alderaan, with its women at the head of the house and of the state? Gabriel had never paid close enough attention to find out. 

“Wouldn’t you know?”

“We don’t really gender God, amongst ourselves.”

Breha’s body language says that she is nervous, and that this conversation is not going the way she expected it to. “But you’re Gabriel,” she says. “How can you keep saying you don’t know?” Gabriel hears the unspoken assumption: How can he not know, when he’s supposed to be so close to God?

“I don’t know,” he says. “There’s a lot I don’t know. Isn’t that enough? It’s the same lot you two are in.”

“We’re not God’s left hand.”

“Well, neither am I,” and he doesn’t mean to snap, but the words come out with an edge. Gabriel puts his hands back in his pockets. “We don’t really talk these days.” Boy, isn’t that an understatement.

When Breha opens her mouth again, Gabriel holds up a hand. His heart sinks a little when she actually stops. “Please,” he says, “just...don’t ask me about religion.”

Breha looks like she  _ almost  _ laughs. “You’re  _ Gabriel,”  _ she says. “How can I not?”

It’s an unfairly just question. “Maybe I’m tired of having my reputation precede me everywhere,” says Gabriel, and for a moment he feels every ounce of his many, many years weigh him down, and every action that came with him. Breha looks troubled. Bail looks - maybe - like he’s had another revelation. “I don’t want to be something you have to weigh your faith against.”

When Gabriel turns, Bail bursts out, “Wait.” He stops even before Bail’s hand finds his shoulder. “You can’t leave.”

“What, Alderaan?” Gabriel tries for levity. He’s been trying enough already on points he never meant to push. “I wasn’t going to.”

Again, Bail searches his face - for what Gabriel doesn’t know. “Then what happens next?” He asks. “After all this?”

Gabriel stops himself from being too serious. Bail might take it as word of God too easily, though Gabriel’s not sure how seriously he holds his faith compared to Breha. “It’s late,” he says. “I gotta make sure Emi’s in bed eventually.” 

“...Then on so small a scale, will you still come some days, if I invite you?”

Gabriel stares. “What is this?” He asks, instead of answering. So many questions passing back and forth, in so short a conversation. “What are you trying to do?”

“You keep trying to leave,” says Bail. “It seems right to keep inviting you back in, just to make sure you really want to go.”

Sometimes Bail is so overwhelmingly, human-ly kind Gabriel forgets he’s supposed to be breathing. He nods, shortly, and Bail releases his shoulder. It’s another moment or two before Gabriel can gather himself to leave. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter, but i really wanted to finally update this

Bail startles badly when Gabriel appears in his office. The royal servant he’s talking to pauses, and looks in the same direction.

“Is something wrong, your Majesty?” He asks, looking back at Bail. Bail darts a glance at Gabriel. Gabriel waves.

“No,” Bail says, “apologies. Something flew by the window unexpectedly and startled me.”

“Are you sure you want more coffee, then, your Majesty?” The servant sounds vaguely amused, exercising a brief moment of cordiality.

“Maybe not,” Bail agrees, trying _ very  _ hard not to look at Gabriel. “But I’ll call if I change my mind.”

Hearing the dismissal, the servant bows and exits. Bail stands as soon as the door closes. “How-?”

“Figured it might be hard to explain if he saw me,” Gabriel says, sitting down in a chair towards the side of the room.

“I didn’t know I should get used to you showing up whenever you wanted.”

“You were the one who wanted me.”

Bail pauses. “I’m sorry?”

Gabriel taps the side of his head. “Not quite the same as a prayer, but I can pick up on a general vibe - you know, a little alert,  _ beep beep beep,  _ Bail wishes you were there.”

Bail is beginning to look deeply embarrassed. “You should have told me that.”

Gabriel shrugs. A conversation on the exact ins and outs of prayer had not been what he wanted to be doing with his time. “Then tell me to go, if you’re busy.”

Bail glances down at his desk, and finally, slowly, sinks back into his seat. “Maybe I should test my luck and ask you for advice,” he ventures.

Gabriel snorts. “I’m pretty sure that’s some degree of illegal.”

“What would you do with state secrets?” Bail sounds amused.

“I could do  _ anything  _ with state secrets. More than most people could,” Gabriel points out. Bail waits a moment, as if to see if Gabriel will crack and reveal he’s joking, and turns uncomfortably back to his work when it doesn’t come. “I doubt you actually wanted me here to help with your finances.”

“I’m not working on finances.” Bail props his chin on his hands. “I’m not sure what I  _ was  _ thinking about...oh, yes, I do. Leia’s going to be having her bat mitzvah.”

“Oh. She’s twelve?”

“She will be. We’re planning in advance. Given our position,” Bail says, with only a little wry humor, “it’s going to end up being something of a production.”

“Just a little one,” Gabriel agrees, pinching two fingers together before dropping his hand to his side. “What does Leia’s bat mitzvah have to do with me?”

“I didn’t know if you’d come.”

“Am I invited?”

Bail looks over at him seriously. “Until just now, I wasn’t sure if an invitation would be worth the amount of visibility you’d endure by attending.”

Gabriel cracks a smile. He can always smile. “So now I don’t have an excuse.”

“I’m not sure we could force you to show up, even without one.” Bail puts his hands down. “It doesn’t matter. Leia would understand if you didn’t come.”

“Hey, I haven’t decided  _ yet.”  _ Gabriel scratches the back of his neck. “I mean, I’d have to at least run it by Emi. She and Leia are friends, or at least doing a good imitation of friendship.”

He draws a faint, brief smile from Bail with the joke. “Emi’s a few years older,” he says thoughtfully. “Did she ever have a bat mitzvah?”

“Emi’s not monotheistic.”

“She isn’t?”

“Well, don’t tell her I told you if it never came up before, but yeah.”

“Isn’t that strange to you?”

“Not at all. I’ve met plenty of polytheists before.”

“Well...” Bail takes the plunge. “You know what I mean.”

Gabriel levels him a look that says yes, he does, thanks Bail for pointing it out. “Just because I’ve never met Alderaan’s gods personally doesn’t mean Emi doesn’t have a right to practice whatever faith she wants.”

Bail sits back in his seat. “You speak as if Alderaan has more than one god.”

“You’re telling me you grew up on this planet and never heard a folk tale?”

“Folk tales, yes, but - really?”

Gabriel shrugs. “I’d be more surprised if there was only ever the one. If no other gods existed, my dad wouldn’t get in such a snit over people potentially worshipping them.”

Bail gives him a curious look again at the gendered term, like the last time they spoke. But he chooses not to comment on it. Instead, after a moment of looking at Gabriel like he’s trying to figure out what he wants to say, he turns his head back down to his work. He blinks at the brightness of the screen, and rubs his eyes. 

“Too much bat mitzvah planning?” Gabriel asks.

“Too much of everything done on a datapad.” Bail sighs. “But it’s got to be done, and it is my job.”

Gabriel rises and saunters a little closer. Bail pointedly turns over his datapad. Gabriel grins, raising his hands in mock surrender. When he lowers them he lets one brush over the back of Bail’s neck, and Bail sits up straight, putting his own hand to the spot.

“What was  _ that _ ?”

“Call it a pick me up.” Gabriel puts his hands in his pockets. “No promises you won’t crash hard in...oh, an hour.”

Bail laughs, disbelievingly, his head tilted back to look up at Gabriel. “An hour is all you can do?”

“An hour is all I’m  _ gonna  _ do. If you wanna stay up all night, call for coffee.”

Bail rubs the back of his neck, still looking up at him. There’s a lot going on in that gaze. Gabriel refrains from reading it too closely. “You could do anything,” says Bail, “and you’re here using it to help me not feel so tired.”

“Oh, anything’s a strong word.” Gabriel reaches out and the chair he was using slides over so he can straddle it backwards, leaning forward so it’s tilted onto two legs. 

“I have a hard time imagining that someone like you has limits.”

A prickle of discomfort went over Gabriel. ‘Someone like you’ meant ‘angel’, not ‘Bail’s friend’. “Maybe.”

“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” Bail said wistfully. Gabriel smiled, looking down for a moment so Bail didn’t get a chance to see it for too long.

“And your train of thought takes you to ‘if I had that power, I’d snap my fingers and the empire would fall’.”

Bail gives him a long look. Gabriel thinks he’s articulated a thought Bail might not have brought up otherwise. “It would be easier than fighting a war,” Bail says at length. 

Gabriel waits for him to ask. He’s not gonna hold Bail’s hand through another train of thought.

“I don’t think any amount of theology could have prepared me for this kind of conversation,” Bail says.

“Find the right person, I’m sure they could argue every conversation with me is theological.”

Bail’s thumb flicks back and forth over a loose corner of the case on his datapad. “It’s easier to interrogate the idea of divine intervention when its agent isn’t sitting in front of me.”

“I’m not an agent of the divine.”

Bail raises his eyebrows. “Whether or not there’s a power directing you, I don’t think that’s remotely true.” 

Gabriel looks away, resting his chin on the back of his arm where it’s thrown carelessly over the back of the chair. Even if there  _ is  _ anything inherently divine about him, by virtue of his creation, he hasn’t acknowledged it in a long, long time. 

“But you don’t argue about intervention,” Bail says, when Gabriel doesn’t respond. 

“You’ve seen me intervene, it would be kinda hard not to.” Gabriel turns back far enough to look at Bail. “I live here, how could I not have some kinda hand in what goes on around here? But it’s just little ones.” He pinches his fingers together again. “Barely remarkable.”

Bail presses his lips together, clearly restraining a comment.

“Bail, stop giving me meaningful looks and just ask.”

_ “Why?” _ Bail leans forward with the force of his question, one hand shifting along the edge of the desk as if to reach out to Gabriel. 

Why let humans sort out their own messes? Why not become an intergalactic babysitter, doing his best to be an omniscient problem-solver since Dad fucked off so long ago? “I’m saving up for a big one,” Gabriel says, straight-faced. 

Bail goes through several emotions, the primary one confusion. “A big one,” he says.

“Yup.”

“Just waiting for the right moment, I see.”

“No. I know what I’m waiting for.”

Bail’s attention sharpens. “What is it, then?”

Well, that question was predictable. “Doesn’t work like that, Bail,” Gabriel says quietly, still light and irreverent. He’ll be irreverent ‘til the day he dies. “I’ve seen enough of humans to know that knowledge of the future is generally the last thing you need.” 

Despite Gabriel’s pick-me-up trick, Bail still looks tired. Or maybe just worn down. “Yet it comes to you naturally.”

Gabriel hears the faint accusation. “Omniscience isn’t hereditary, you know. It’s my dad’s alone.”

“How could you know about whatever this is, then?”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.” 

“I’ve believed you so far.”

“Well, then, do you trust me enough to believe me when I say this one is a little too much even for you?”

“Of course I do.” Bail sounds almost resigned to it, but there’s a true genuine feeling to what he says. He turns his attention back to the overturned datapad on his desk, finger-combing some of his hair out of his face, and ends up leaning his head on his hand, looking at Gabriel again. “It’s strange to hear someone consistently gender God the way you do.”

“You know I can tell when you’re trying really hard not to ask a ‘why’ question outright?”

“Forgive me. I think my curiosity, and my desire to respect your wish not to talk about it all, are at war with each other.”

“Another battle hogging your attention,” Gabriel jokes, resting his chin on his arms. Well, maybe he can cut Bail some slack. “I don’t know. Alda’s a gendered language. So’s Basic. Back where I hung out the most, that’s how God was gendered. I guess it’s habit if I have to pick one or the other.”

“Alda is developing some gender-neutral pronouns, too,” Bail points out. “Maybe that would be a better translation.”

“Eh. The thing about being  _ me  _ is I predate things like ‘gender’ and ‘needing audible words to express an idea’.” Gabriel uses air quotes, leaning back to get his arms free for the gesture. “Gender wasn’t something that occurred to me before humans started using it. I don’t know if there’s any such thing as a good translation of the specific concept of the individual I might be trying to refer to.” Gabriel pauses. “Also we mostly just called each other by name.”

“I’ve heard tell,” Bail says thoughtfully, “of old Jedi masters who could communicate purely through the Force.”

“Oh, I dunno about the Force.” The Force is a whole different beast.

“You don’t think they were doing the same thing?”

“No, I literally don’t know about the Force. I never heard of it before I came to hang out around here.” Seeing Bail’s expression, Gabriel resigns himself to a better explanation. “Maybe it’s something that only exists in this universe. Or maybe the one I used to hang out in got skipped when dad was handing out Force sensitivity.”

“This  _ universe?” _

“Yeah, there’s a bunch of ‘em. I haven’t been in most of them, I kind of picked a favorite early on and stuck with it.” Not that he’d been  _ alone  _ in doing that. As far as he knew. He’d stopped asking Michael about that kind of thing a long, long time ago. Gabriel rubs the back of his neck, and tries to lighten the mood. “So, ask me about anything, but don’t ask me about the Force, ‘cause I have no idea what it is.”

Bail is leaning back in his chair and just staring, a pose he’s adopted a lot in the past half hour. “Presumably,” he says when he gathers himself, “HaShem could be held responsible?”

“I wouldn’t argue with a rule of thumb that says if it’s around, He made it.” Gabriel shrugs. “Then again, pagan gods.”

“...A reasonable point.” But Bail lets the point trail off. Gabriel leans his chin on his folded arms again, meeting Bail’s gaze evenly. He doesn’t let himself look too closely at what’s in it. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For answering my questions. You said before you’d prefer not to.”

“...Well, how could I refuse?” Gabriel traces a finger in nonsensical patterns across the surface of Bail’s desk. “Besides, I assume you’ll tell Breha, and she seemed...curious.”

“You could always talk to her yourself.”

“I could.” Gabriel takes his time before glancing up when Bail won’t fill the silence. He sighs at Bail’s raised eyebrows. “Oh,  _ fine. _ One more question.”

“I’ll see if I can fit them all into one.” Bail balances his chin in the crook between his pointer finger and thumb. “...Why not?”

Bail’s good. Gabriel assumes it’s a result of dealing with politicians for so long. Why not talk to Breha? Why not refuse? Why not answer the questions? 

It would be pretty awkward for Bail, if his wife was angry at his friend.

“Maybe we’ll talk after Leia’s big day,” he said. “If Emi doesn’t want to come, I’ll probably show up anyway. Presents are traditional, right?”

“If you want, I doubt Leia will object.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story would be very easy to write if so much of it didn't rely on a more-than-surface-level knowledge of jewish traditions and beliefs, so now on top of college i have to do my research!

**Author's Note:**

> my apologies to uhhhhh judaism. i would like to be respectful but in some ways i, unfortunately, must acknowledge supernatural canon
> 
> this is going....somewhere. i'm gonna get there. i have to write them getting together for the sake of an extremely specific line i thought up but this may end up being a nonlinear narrative. as in i skip around. because, as usual, i write these for fun and sometimes if i have enough trouble getting from point A to B i just skip straight to writing point B. i'm laying in excuses for future me.


End file.
